"Tell you what," Olivia said. "Let me find out what the situation is, and I'll call you later tonight, if I need you. Morning comes early. You go get some sleep."
Olivia drove quickly to the police station, which was situated on a hill above Saint George. She glanced down over the city as she exited the car. The lights were soft and warm. The Mormon Temple, the largest building in the city, was all luminous white and gold, its central spire rising above the sleeping city.
The Sheriffs office was imposing, big and blockish. Dozens of patrol cars parked out front, their bubble lights gleaming in a well-lit lot.
Olivia would have preferred a smaller precinct—something where only one lone dispatcher might be manning the night desk. In her imagination it would be easy to subdue just one officer.
She considered waiting for Father Leery, but she was too nervous. She wanted to see Bron now, to get him out quickly, if she could.
As she walked up the sidewalk toward the doors, she glanced up at the security cameras overhead, and realized that she had another problem: there might be an electronic record of Bron's arrest—video footage, photographs, induction records, dispatch transcripts.
This incident could already be too large to contain, she decided. Maybe I should just snatch Bron and run.
She was trembling as she reached the door. The automatic opener let the doors slide backward, yawning into a dark space.
Like the Greek entrance to hell, Olivia thought. She peeked inside, saw a smiling desk clerk—a petite woman with dark hair. My very own Cerberus.
Olivia stepped inside the building, with its bland beige walls. The place was bustling. Two dispatchers handled the desk, while a corrections officer milled about, processing a dejected-looking drunk. Dozens of officers were finishing up day shift, or coming in for the night.
It was as if it were the busiest time of day. Her heart sank.
It might still be possible to get Bron out.
She imagined that the police would escort her to some kind of interrogation room. With any luck, she might overpower Officer Walton, wipe his mind, and then just walk away.
She went to the desk clerk and announced herself. "Olivia Hernandez, here to see Officer Walton?"
The desk clerk punched a call to line three, spoke softly, and moments later Walton came scurrying from the back, with a female officer at his side. He smiled, his mouth as wide as a bullfrog's. "Olivia, thank you for coming down and making this easy for us. Right this way."
Officer Walton led her down a hall. Through some one-way glass she spotted Bron sitting in an interrogation room, his hands cuffed behind his back, while a lone bulb shone overhead.
Walton led her to a second interrogation room. "Go on in and have a seat," he said, as he opened the door.
She felt certain now that she wasn't here to see Bron. Walton intended to arrest her. She had only one chance to escape. The hallway was empty except for the two officers.
She had never used her sizraels as weapons, but she knew how to.
Normally, a person's mind filters their thoughts, allows them to concentrate on only one thing at a time. But with a little burst of power, Olivia could open thousands of memories at once. The resulting "brain burst" was like an explosion in the mind. The stimulus knocked most people unconscious.
Olivia entered the room, unsheathed her sizraels, whirled, and reached up to tap Walton on the temple.
But Walton responded faster than a fat man should be able to, grabbing her wrist and twisting fiercely, digging the knuckle of his thumb into her wrist, in the bundle of nerve fibers in her ganglia. A throb of pain numbed her arm.
Walton shoved her against a wall and slapped a handcuff on one of her wrists.
He must have spotted the suction cups on her fingers, for he shouted, "What the hell?"
Olivia immediately forced herself to relax, retracted her sizraels. They were worthless anyway. The ganglia in the human wrist was a pressure point used by martial artists, but attacks to this spot were doubly effective upon masaaks. Olivia's whole arm was numb with pain.
Walton seemed scared now. Frightened people are often mean. He slammed her against the wall again for good measure and twisted her other arm up into the cuffs. For a moment he stood huffing, trying to catch his breath.
He grabbed her cuffs and pulled them back and up, so that the metal cut into her wrists, as he examined her fingers. The suction cups were gone. By now he'd be wondering what he thought he'd seen.
"Well," he said after a moment, confusion evident in his tone. "I think I'm going to pile 'resisting arrest' and 'battery' on top of all the other charges."
Blair Kardashian had been listening to a police scanner in his hotel room when a message came over the radio. "This is car 7, Officer Walton. We have a 10-82, suspect in custody, on that freeway incident last Friday. I'm bringing him in for questioning."
"That's a 10-4," the dispatcher said.
Blair leaned close to the speakers, waiting for the dispatcher to ask the identity of the subject, but she didn't bother.
Night was on, and the air was filled with end-of-shift chatter. Beyond that, someone had just called in a major accident down on the Arizona border, and emergency vehicles and police were rushing to the scene, so news of Walton's arrest got lost in the excitement.
Blair picked up his cell phone and considered calling his master.
His acolytes were out doing grunt work for the dread knights, watching store parking lots. It was a menial task, but someone had to keep watch: masaaks are nocturnal by nature. Darkness makes them feel safe, concealed. So the dread knights had reasoned that their quarry would most likely wait for full darkness to run their errands. They'd need to eat sometime. So each major grocery store in the area had one Draghoul guarding it.
The fact that Blair was relegated to listening to a police scanner was humiliating. The dread knights were hindering him from finding his quarry. Using memories they'd stolen from him, they insisted on conducting their own search, hoping to win their master's reward when they caught this pair.
It wasn't fair, Blair knew. But the dread knights were not known for being fair.
Why should I let them have the honor? he wondered. Why should they gain a reward?
Though he was growing old, Blair was far more capable than others imagined. He kept physically and mentally fit. Over the years he had gleaned a great deal of information from various fighters—Navy SEALS, Army Rangers, and the like. Killers all.
So he slipped into his new Mercedes and drove to Harmon's Grocery Store. There he found Acolyte Riley O'Hare in the parking lot, keeping the store under surveillance. Blair pulled up to Riley's car, rolled down his window, and said, "Get in." The acolyte knew better than to ask why.
Half an hour later, Blair had gathered all four of his acolytes. It was nearly 11:00 by the time he reached the police station. An officer was just leaving. Civilian cars crowded the parking lot. Too many.
Blair huddled behind the driver's seat. The acolytes in the car did not speak. They'd been trained to remain silent.
"All right, my little nightingales," Blair said. "It's time to go to work. You know what to do."
"Is this a wet op?" Riley asked.
"Yes," Blair said. "Prepare to get bloody."
So, Olivia," Officer Walton said, "our tipster tells us that a woman in a white Honda CRV was driving when the attack on the highway occurred. Would you like to tell us what happened?"